Racial Stereotypes Essay

Racial stereotypes flourish in a diverse country such as the United States. No one is immune from bias or prejudice. The criminal justice system, and its practitioners are no exception. Every member of the criminal system from judges, police officers, correctional officers, to probation officers all have stereotypes about racial groups. What is important is to recognize this fact and not to let personal bias interfere in how one treats and views others. The way that racial minorities are viewed does affect how they are treated in the criminal justice system. It can factor into whether a member is stopped and searched, whether a member is arrested, whether they are found guilty or not guilty, the sentence they receive if found guilty, and the terms and conditions of their probation. The police have often been accused of racial profiling by stopping certain people based on their race (McNamara & Burns, 2009). Police officers sometimes counter racial profiling by quoting statistics such as every African American I’ve stopped has drugs. They fail to recognize that if there are looking for African Americans, they will find them. If they were looking for White Americans with drugs, they would also find them. Stereotype such as this lead police and the court system to treating racial groups differently from White Americans, and from each other. One stereotype is that African Americans are drug dealers, particularly involved in the sale of crack cocaine. The federal government even went so far as to provide different sentencing guidelines depending on whether it was powder cocaine or rock cocaine (McNamara & Burns, 2009). This was found to disproportionately affect African Americans and the result was African Americans receiving longer sentences for the same amount of cocaine than a White American solely due to whether it was in powder or rock form (McNamara & Burns, 2009). Every racial minority group has at least one stereotype associated with it. …show more content…
One can listen to any conservative talk radio show and hear the stereotypes assigned to members of minority groups. African Americans are stereotyped by seen as wanting to live off the government and draw a monthly check. They are also seen as more dangerous and more likely to be involved in a violent gang and sell drugs. Hispanics are stereotyped as ‘illegal’ due to their undocumented immigration status. This leads them to being seen as dirty by some in the majority. They are seen as willing to work for low wages since they are not documented workers in the United States. They are also seen as coming to the United States to earn American dollars to send back to Mexico. While this is so many support large extended families in Mexico and many end up bringing their families here. Native Americans are stereotyped as being alcoholics and as savages. They are viewed by some as being uneducated and not wanting to work. Asian Americans are the most accepted minority group, partly because they are seen by the majority as the ‘model minority’ (McNamara & Burns, 2009). Asian Americans are stereotyped as hard-working, successful and educated. These lead to them being more accepted into the culture of the majority. Asian Americans also tend to be family oriented and respect of authority which serves them well in encounters with police and the criminal justice system. Stereotypes contribute to the sentencing by both judges and juries. Studies have shown that African